#( lmk if anything needs changing heehee )

[plctwists]

for @96ymh two weeks after the incident 

victim. noun. a person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action

in every fucking sense of the word, mina knows they all perceive her as a victim – of the goddamn inferno that robbed her of what little prevailing normalcy she had of her life, the one that had razed the closest thing she had to love to ashes. it’s all she sees when she catches a glimpse of the newspapers - ones that seina doesn’t manage to hide quickly enough, when she turns on her phone and looks at her endless barrage of unread messages that she refuses to acknowledge, when she meets the eyes of those whispering around her.

okay, to be accurate, sometimes, they call her a survivor. well, the cornier articles and the cheesy strangers with their damp eyes and commiserating gazes do. mina’s not sure which is worse; both terms drive her to nauseous spells, trigger her into frenzied binges of painting raging scarlet skies and sooty figures. (she never keeps any of them. it always ends the same way at the crack of dawn - mina stares at the artwork, mina goes berserk, mina shreds and tears and pulverizes the canvas to smithereens as if it could reorient the past. the ceaseless, merciless nightmares are bad enough, god knows she doesn’t need to hold any more souvenirs from the night.)

and that’s why she avoids yoo minhyuk; refuses to go into the library under some pretext no one dares to probe at. he is a sentient reminder of june 22nd - in his eyes, she sees the frantic pleas for an ambulance, the desperate tears that stripped her life-long facade to nothing but pure vulnerability and fear, the flames that licked at her skin and the fumes that smothered her lungs. he reminds her that the truth is etched in stone, and no matter how many divergent resolutions she paints, no matter what varying colours she uses, they cannot conceal the inscription. he is reality, and one that mina refuses to concede to.

it takes her 2 weeks before she gets the resolve to see him because god, even if the entire fucking world distempers her as a victim, she won’t give him the chance to. “minhyuk!” she greets, with an enthusiasm entirely unbefitting of their relationship, “how have you been? i remember we talked about wanting to paint together.”

light, breezy smile pulling on the corner of her lips. an innocuous invite or an implicit dare to confront her on her act. “i’d love to pick your brain for ideas, let me know when you’re up for it!”